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West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has taken strong exception to the use of a word in the letter Home Minister P Chidambaram sent to him in which he asked the state government to disarm CPI-M cadres. "I strongly object to your using the word harmad (hired killers) to mean CPI-M party workers without knowing the meaning of the nasty word coined by Trinamool Congress," Bhattacharjee wrote in his strongly-worded reply, a copy of which was made available to the media.
Bhattacharjee had sent his reply on Tuesday. The chief minister in his reply also mentioned Trinamool Congress' link with the Maoists. "The Trinamool Congress had earlier a secret contact with Maoists. Now they are openly organising meetings with the them," Bhattacharjee wrote in the letter.
Dwelling on the Maoist menace, Bhattacharjee said the ultras were active in 28 police station areas in threedistricts on the state. They were killing political opponents, looting arms and resorting to extortion, the letter said. Bhattacharjee also listed success of the joint forces operating against the Maoists who, he said, posed the biggest threat to the internal security of the country.
"Central and state forces have achieved major success. Life is gradually coming back to normal and people who were evicted are going back to their homes," he said. Without mentioning the CPI-M, Bhattacharjee said that he was trying to disarm all armed groups. Chidambaram's letter had asked the state government to disarm CPI-M cadres. The chief minister also sought to correct Chidambaram on the figures quoted by him in the letter, saying 69 CPI-M workers were killed in political clashes and 723 injured while 32 Trinamool Congress activists were killed and 601 injured'.
Admitting that it was not a happy situation, Bhattacharjee said he was trying his best to stop the senseless killings. He also regretted that despite his repeated appeals to all political parties to stop violence, Trinamool Congress had not responded and refused to talk to the administration while other parties cooperated.